Fossil hunting with Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan

By Romeo San Vicente

You already know Kate Winslet and
you’re finally figuring out who the staggeringly talented Saoirse Ronan (Mary Queen of Scots) is, even if you
still can’t quite pronounce her name. But soon you’ll get a fresh chance to
learn the name Francis Lee, the director whose beautifully queer independent
drama, God’s Own Country, won the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for
Directing at Sundance 2017, as well as Best Film at the British Independent
Film Awards. He’s got a new movie in the works called Ammonite starring the aforementioned A-listers, and we think it’s
poised to be the next contender in the lesbian fave sweepstakes. Winslet will
star as 19th-century paleontologist Mary Anning (credited with making important
scientific discoveries in the Jurassic marine fossil beds along the English
Channel), with Ronan as the young woman Anning develops a relationship with
during a seaside convalescence. With credits like this in the mix, we’re
guessing awards and stuff, and a lot of windswept English natural beauty. It
shoots in March, even though we’re sort of ready for it right now. We’ll just
make do with watching Carol for the
13th or 23rd time until this one’s ready.

Gregg Araki presents Apocalypse
soon

Veteran indie filmmaker Gregg Araki (Mysterious Skin), pioneer of the New Queer Cinema, has a new series
coming to Starz in March. It’s called Now
Apocalypse; he co-wrote it with Vogue.com sex columnist Karley Sciortino
(Viceland’s Slutever series) and he’s got heavy-hitter co-producers Steven
Soderbergh (Logan Lucky) and Gregory
Jacobs (Magic Mike XXL) on board. As
usual it’s populated by a sexy young cast – Avan Jogia (Twisted), Kelli Berglund (Lab
Rats), Beau Mirchoff (The Fosters),
and Roxane Mesquida (Kaboom) – and
set in a fractured version of Los Angeles where everyone is chasing love, sex,
money and fame, until people start having prophetic dreams about dark
conspiracies and, well, the apocalypse. Whatever, it’ll be hazily glamorous and
there’ll be old Cocteau Twins songs on the soundtrack, right? We’re ready.

Nico Tortorella is coming
soon with Fluidity

It’s not every day that a niche cable hottie comes out the way
Nico Tortorella did. The snackish co-star of Younger and co-host of MTV’s bizarrely addictive How Far is Tattoo Far? (the show where
frenemies blindfold each other and commit heinous acts of tattooing as revenge)
didn’t just casually shrug into gayness. No, Tortorella did it up in grand
style, by coming out as non-binary (pronoun usually “they” but seems fairly
chill about it), polyamorous, married in complementary wedding gowns to their
non-binary bisexual partner Bethany Meyers, and then going on The Wendy Williams Show to joyfully
explain it everybody. Obviously, we’re fans now. Which means we will be hunting
down a little film called Fluidity
from director Linda Yellen when it gets itself out of post-production and onto
the queer film festival circuit. It would appear to be about a bunch of
Millennials looking for love and intimacy in New York, and finding out that
they’re all… fluid? Look, we
don’t really know. But we’re extremely ready for Nico’s red carpet look.

Queer as Folk getting
the Bravo reboot?

It appears that it’s time to inflict Queer as Folk on a whole new generation. The 1999 UK series,
created by Russell T. Davies, the one that launched Charlie Hunnam’s career,
and spawned an extremely popular and hilariously hate-watchable Showtime series
set in the wildest, sparkliest Pittsburgh you’ve (n)ever seen, might be
returning to American television thanks to Bravo. Davies is already on board as
an executive producer, though there’s no cast set up yet and no word on any
other details either. Listen, make it happen, Bravo, because we’re going to
watch; in fact, we’re into it all the way, but when it shows up we do hope
everyone on the creative team understands that we have Pose now and the L Word
reboot in the works, and Drag Race
and queer characters and queer narratives on other programs and the entire
queer internet to keep us entertained, so a little trio of gay white twinks is,
frankly, from the olden times. What we’re saying is… y’all better werk.